Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 March 1891 — IN PURSUIT OF SNAKES. [ARTICLE]

IN PURSUIT OF SNAKES.

& Collector's Hunt Alter a Rattier Vgly Looking Reptile. There is a popular prejudice against even the most harmless snakes, and few people would carry the collector’s rage so far as to attempt the capture of an ugly-looking reptile with the bare hands. Bat the born naturalist, like the bom sportsman, does not mind any slight risk when his blood is up. In Sherman F. Denton’s “Incidents of a Collector’s Rambles” is the following aeeount of an incident belonging to his stay in Australia: Snakes were rather numerous, and one day, while walking in the thick scrub, I came across a large, light brown one, coiled upon the ground. He was by far the largest specimen I had ever seen at large, and was probably ten or twelve met long, and as thick as a man’s leg at the knee. I thought at first I would shoot him in the head with a light charge of shot, and carry home his sain. Then I considered that, if taken alive, he would be worth five times as much. Feeling about in ml pocket and game bag, I at last found a leather strap with a buckle. I drew the strap through the buckle, making a noose, and thus armed, started cautiously toward his snakeship, intending to put the noose over his head. 4 As soon as I came near, he partly uncoiled, opened his mouth very wide, thereby disclosing his sharp teeth, and, hissing spitefully, struck at me. I dodged behind a small tree, and, leaning out as far as I dared, tried several times to noose him. He was very savage, and looked powerful enough to crush me in his folds. At this juncture my courage was at rather * iow •bb.

After I had teased him for some time, he suddenly decided to leave mr company, and started off at full speed. I caught up my run and went after him, and, By hard running through the scrub, managed to head him off. He stopped, coifed up again, and again I tried the noose. He was equal to the occasion, putting his head under his coils in a very sulky manuer; but a» soon as I reached out, and caught him by the tail he pulled away with great force and started off once more. This time he took refuge under a fallen tree;and before I could head him off, he was gliding down the hole of some wild beast, which was partly concealed by the dead branches. I reached the spot just as the last two or three feet were going down, and seizing his tail with both hands, I hung on desperately. With my feet braced against a limb of a tree, I pulled till the tail cracked and snapped, as if it would break asunder. Sometimes he pulled me within a few inches of tho hole, and then I would brace up on the limb, and drag him half way out. At last I grew so tired that I had to let go my hold,and, with many regrets, I saw the last few inches of the tail disappear beneath tne ground.

Prof. Pierre Francois Spaink, an, emineui, pathologist and microacopist of Baarn, Holland, has been awarded the prtve for the best essay on the care of drunkards and the cure of drunken« ness, offered by the Inebriates’ Home at Fort Hamilton, New York. The competitors have had a year in which to prepare their papers, lhe Dueth professor made many, delicate microscopic experiments with rabbits as sub* jects. The result of these experiments will overjoy pathologists who have held that drunkenness is a disease, Prof. Spaink finds that alcoholis m is a disease that has Its origin in the habitual use of alcohol or other strong drink. It is a disease peculiar to itself and calling for peculiar treatment.